05 April 2017

So put anything in a bowl, and I'm there. Burritos. Smoothies. Cheetos...You get it...

Which is why when I saw one of my very favorite foods, the banh mi, in a bowl I was like 'sign me up!' [No joke - I actually said it aloud to myself while on Pinterest yesterday]. Banh Mi is the Vietnamese word for any kind of bread, but the term is loosely used for these amazing sandwiches that you can get at any Vietnamese restaurant that usually contain all of the yummy ingredients in this bowl. I pickled the carrots for a few hours before serving in a sesame/coconut sugar mixture so you can imagine how good they tasted. Add some lemongrass/chili turkey meatballs [recipe called for pork but I used turkey and they were still amazing!] to the mix and top it with some sriracha mayo and tons of fresh herbs and you have a reaaaaaal party going on in your boring soup bowl. That's the best that bowl has ever looked.

Confession: I made two servings of the meatballs and ended up eating both of them. Get the recipe here.

04 April 2017

So here I was, thinking it's been over 2 years (OVER 2 YEARS) since I blogged on here...and really, shouldn't I sort of re-brand myself? I'm in Marketing after all, and re-branding is right up my alley, in my professional tool kit and all of that...

So I think I will. I need to figure out the ins and outs of it, with redirects and all of that, but it may look a bit different around here very soon. You can see the new name in that artsy picture to the left (and will you check out that clean car?!) I love my original blog, E is for Emily, of course, but I'm ready to leave that part of my life in the past and look back on it fondly. Quite frankly, I had tried creating another blog and I kind of forgot how much time it takes to get everything looking just the way you want it when you're doing this all from scratch (HTML code, you guys...the struggle is SO real).

And fun fact - I'm taking a hiatus from working for a few months. It's nuts, I know. I've never done anything this crazy before, but I have the means to do it for now, and without any kids to take care of just yet, if not now, when? Trips, adventures, lots of cooking, working out, all of that good stuff is in my future and subsequently, so is the mental and emotional bandwidth to blog again. The reason for not working? Career shift - not a full 180 or anything like that, I won't be going into the medical field or something...can you imagine that, though? The girl who NEVER won a game of Operation in her life actually operating on people? Let's all give thanks for a moment that that isn't where this is going...

17 January 2016

Okay, so the idea for this post came to me in the car - I have so many car epiphanies you guys, it's crazy. Anyways, this song came on and I thought, oh dang, this song is kind of fresh, you know those songs? And then I played it again, and again, and then one more time. (That's 4 times in a row, in case you were keeping track...)

And I looked in my rear view mirror to check my surroundings, made eye contact with myself and thought, oh gosh, this is kind of embarrassing, make sure not to tell anyone about this. So naturally, I'm writing this on here for the world to see.

You want to know the song, right? My ultimate guilty pleasure song at this moment? Judgement free zone, please. It's "Steal My Girl" by One Direction. Listen to it, you guys, I'm telling you...somewhere deep in your heart will thank you. And if you watch the video, there's an Airstream and Danny Devito, so if you hate the song, there's at least that.

Assuming you haven't hit that little "x" in the upper corner of your browser at this point, tell me what yours is. It's like a truth circle!

16 January 2016

Not to dwell too much in the past, because I ain't about all that business, but I wanted to share a few photos from 2015 before officially posting anything on the blog this year. Although, it is officially this year, if we're being technical, but let's just move past it, cool?

Also, taking the blog in a slightly different direction. Going to post stuff about my own crazy life, as usual, but also want to start posting things that inspire me, things I'm learning about and find interesting (and hopefully you will too!) and things I want to put to writing so I can remember them. Because if I take a pen to paper to remember things, they inevitably end up in a drawer somewhere, never to be seen again. And I've got some pretty profound things to say, but you're not surprised or anything, right?

Anyways, just a few photos from last year.. a lot of them are with Raleigh, my nephew, sorry not sorry.

clockwise from top left...

1// Never Settle...this started off a year of doodling people's life mantras (pretty profound stuff, right?) I wrote this one down, kind of loved it, posted it to Facebook, and then people started asking me if I could write their mantras. I had a lot of fun with that...going to pick that back up in 2016, fsho.

2// The moment Raleigh asked me to be his godmother, which had my heart all fluttery. That kid. He is my favorite human.

3// A great year with my beautiful bestie. We both had quite the year, but through it all, we had each other. And greasy breakfast food. We relived our college glory days, spent time in South Haven, hit the town, shopped til we dropped, all that good bestie stuff.

4// South Haven proved as amazing as ever this year. My fam added an addition to our tiny little spot (remember when Airstreams were an option?!), so it's now a spot we can all go (at the same time!) and not be all up in each others business. Not to mention my parents let my sister and I decorate the new place, so we went kind of nuts and had way too much fun with that. And the place looks flipping awesome...my side table is an old library catalog. I KNOW.

5// Sharing this shameless selfie because I wanted to remember the hair transformation I went through this year. When I hit the job market this year (and I hit it hard!), I decided to dye my hair a little bit darker (although this is the lighter version), as apparently blondes don't have as much fun job hunting and all that business. So I did, I went darker - I mean, there was DARKNESS all up in there. And it worked! My hair and my qualifications got me a new, amazing job at such an awesome place, but it was mostly my hair. Personality shmersonality.

6// Continued my love affair with rugs and Converse this year. I put this pic in this mix mostly because I liked my jeans in this picture and I can't seem to find them, so this is my unofficial reminder to look for them.

7// This kid. I'm serious, you guys. Not just a biased aunt talking, but he's such a good person. And he's insanely funny. And he thinks I'm funny, which I plan to take full advantage of until he's old enough to know better.

18 November 2015

You guys, I did it! Not only did I make this necklace to commemorate today (it's impressive, right?) but today marks the day that I officially begin my 20's swan song.

Now that 29 is my reality, it's a little bittersweet. Mostly sweet, though. I've always said I can't wait to turn thirty - or at least for a good five years now, no joke. And now that thirty is just over the horizon, I want to make this last year in my 20's as sweet and as wonderful as can be. And when thirty comes, there can be fireworks and pugs and faux fur throws galore (hey, it's my party!)

This year, though. This year I'm going to kick some major butt - at living and being a good human and loving people.

// I love a good bar cart, and the irony is not lost on me that as a non-drinker I would love them so much. Get ready to be inspired by these amazing bar carts - do you think I could make one for Shirley Temples and fancy iced teas? I'll make it a thing...